All of us involved with the show at Middle East Down in Central Square on August 23 would like to apologize to the world of social media for the amount of posting/ reblogging/hashtagging/promoting/all-around overkill that we partook in during the weeks leading up to the gig…except no, store we wouldn’t. I think I speak for everyone who was tagged or reposted something during those weeks when I say that we had as little shame as possible. If you paid attention, you would have seen preview interviews, awesome promo flyers, and #findrebeccafrank plastered all over the pages of any number of peoples’ Facebook’s and Twitter accounts. That being said, it was a little surreal when the actual day of the show came.

I feared the worst when I looked at the “Departures” board at Raleigh-Durham International, and saw that my 4:24 pm flight to Logan had been moved to 5:55. In my frantically sped up mode of thinking, I realized that this would put me in Logan only 30 minutes before the doors to the Middle East opened. I then made a bold decision, one that would turn out to be one of the smarter things I’ve decided in several months: take a cab straight to Central square from the airport, bags and all, instead of trekking back to Brighton, where I was staying that night. A substantial amount of traffic and an undisclosed amount of cab fare later, I found myself waving at Richard Bouchard and the Field Effect as I managed to get across Mass Ave without getting struck by a vehicle. Two minutes later and I was dumping my stuff in the green room as Nick Twohig and Rebecca Frank of the Deep North pretended to hide the dead hookers and cocaine (wait what?). After a round of hugs, band members started filling the downstairs part of the venue and everyone waited with bated breath for the fans to show up.

We wouldn’t have to wait long, as faces, familiar and new, walked into the Middle East. Most of them promptly made their way to the bars and then turned to the stage in eager anticipation of the night’s prodigiously promoted festivities to start.

Velah’s opening set saw me move slowly from the back of the room towards the stage, almost drawn in a trance to their constantly-growing, shifting tones. They opened with the booming choruses of “Sandra,” before making ample use of toy organ effects with “Skeleton House.” Velah knows how to draw an audience in. Maybe it’s because I’m like a squirrel, and so I am therefore drawn to shiny stuff, but the combination of the reverb- laden tracks, the lighting in the Mid. East, and Jen Johnson’s shiny pink hair had the crowd mesmerized. The sonic shifting would continue as Velah picked up the pace with “Cedar Spells,” another new track, while even more echoes made their way into the room with a slowed-down, version of “Wanderlust,” which Jen later referred to as a “rearranged, reverb-drem sludgefest.” The difference between the new live version and the recorded track took me by surprise, but after I had shaken off my wonder, I settled into the much mellower, soothing sounds of the down-tempo version. By the end of “Wanderlust,” I was practically right next to the stage, close enough to take, what I consider, at least, a semi-decent iPhone picture. I’m glad I was, because the band closed with another new song, “Coronado.” I may have mentioned once or several times that Velah enjoys reverb…well, here’s the best possible example. During this live, explosive track, Johnson ditched her white Gibson SG while guitarist and vocalist Nick Murphy attempted to create a brain-melting wall of sound with his Fender Jaguar. I’ll spoil the ending for you: he succeeded. While Johnson bounced around the stage, filling the room with her powerful voice that could easily be heard all the way at freakin’ Cantab, Murphy went absolutely nuts, swinging the guitar every which way, trying to squeeze every last bit of feedback, reverb, distortion, and delay out of his guitar, amp, and pedal board, as humanly possible. The end result was a monster of a closer, bringing Velah’s set to a sweaty, echoey halt.

The Deep North’s set was an eclectic mix of upbeat sing-alongs and hard-rocking darker anthems. With a new album, Sound and Light set to be released in the fall, Rebecca Frank and company decided to break out a slew of new songs, including the recently- released “Voices,” a straightforward, hook-filled song that caused some serious head banging by a few eager listeners. The departure of their keyboardist did not deter the band in the slightest, with their more stripped-down, raw sound breaking out in crowd favorite “Wake Up.” Throughout the set, Frank was at her charismatic best, roaming the stage in a black sundress and boots, bringing the best out of both the audience and the rest of the band. The rhythm section of Dan Nakhoul (bass) and Nick Angelo (drums) provided a thumping background to Frank’s vocals and Nick Twohig’s harmonies and layered guitars. Kudos to Nick: being the lone guitar player in a band with such ranging indie styles as the Deep North is a challenge. His transitions between light, tingly leads and overdriven rhythm sections brought tightness to the performance that would have made a lesser guitarist piss his pants. Oh, and did I mention the new material killed? I haven’t been to a Deep North show since May, but if newly recorded tracks “Broken Clocks,” “We Are Only Strangers,” and “One Morning Came,” are any indication, their upcoming release is going to blow the walls off their debut EP. In a fashion true to their varied background as individual musicians and as a full band, the indie foursome broke into the expansive, seven-minute noise-fest that is “Silent Film Star,” before breaking it down even further with closer “Gemini,” clearly inspired by the band’s roots in the dark, hardcore scene.

Befitting a bill of this varied taste, The Susan Constant injected some serious power-pop bounce into the room. Paul Sennott’s distinctive voice cut through the underground venue with “Locked Up,” the first track off their latest EP. The overall atmosphere of their live show made it really tough for me to quickly type out notes on my phone, as I was bouncing off the walls as they careened through an incredibly upbeat, sing-along-heavy set. “Like a Ghost” and “It Comes Apart” reminded everyone that rock can wear a lot of different hats, whether it’s loud and explosive or softer and delicate. With their slower songs, I found myself wishing I had a lighter on me, as I swayed along with the rest of the crowd. A highlight of the set was easily “Tennessee,” a horn-filled romp that had me doing an odd version of bounce dancing (never play music around me…I will make myself look like an ass). Thankfully after that all I had to do was rock, with “Made of Paper” and it’s straightforward, power-chord centric lead providing an honest reason for me to kill more brain cells by jerking my head back and forth. I’m amazed I lasted the entire set without getting another beer, but the Susan Constant had me hooked from the beginning, and refused to slow down even in the last few songs. The ballad “Draw Us All” brought the room to a pleasant swoon with its light guitar touches and piano melody…but we were quickly brought back to our usual happy bounce with the playful “Came/Went.” More synch pop was on schedule with “One Good Reason,” before the band launched into “Charles De Gaulle,” the opener for their first LP. I love it when bands put album openers near the end of their sets, and this particular song was no different. Bringing together the best of the Susan Constant’s upbeat dynamic, but also their penchant for adding a dance-pop element to pretty straightforward hard rock, “Charles De Gaulle” is potentially the best showcase of the group’s alt-rock direction, while still maintaining its catchiness.

Disclaimer: this was stated in my interview with the Field Effect, the final band of the night, but people are almost never sober when they leave venues containing all four members of this noise-producing rock tornado. At the very front of the stage by now, I clutched a half-full PBR and sweated my way through the always-lively foursome’s indie banger. Throwing caution to the wind, the Field Effect opened up with a brand-new song (that I didn’t catch the name of…woops), a start-and-stop foot-stomper, reminiscent of Say Anything (before they got all weird). I hesitate to say the rest of the set was business as usual for the Field Effect, but I’ll allow it this time. Why? Because for the Field Effect, “business as usual” means having a fuck-ton of fun onstage and attempting to sonically bang each member of the audience. Even if I were deaf (which I partly was, back in the spring), I would be able to tell how much this band loved doing their thing. As Doug Orey belted his way through “Til I Say When” and “Kurt Vonnegut” with his usual bearded, full-throated charge, drummer Adam Hand began his usual routine of sweating buckets while murdering his drum set. With “Headwrecked” and “The Ghost Of,” the band brought the audience as close to moshing as the venue would allow. This whole time, guitarist Nick Grieco attacked his leads with trademark precision, providing a clean counterpoint to Orey’s rough rhythm sound. With “Dancing With Earthquakes” and “Cotton,” the band brought the room to a lower-dynamic slow dance. The ease of this contrast really makes this band special, especially live. Currently only known in its live incarnation, the anthemic “Lions” brings out the best in the band, with a chorus of “wanna go home” turning the crowd at the Middle East into a throat-wrenching backup choir. With the slower, more intimate “Limb” and “Porcelain” providing a respite from the explosive sound coming off the stage, the audience had a little time to recuperate before the grand finale. To close out what had already been an amazing show, the Field Effect brought out their first single and LP opener, “Ogunquit, ME.” The basement exploded. If there was a soul in the joint who didn’t know words to the chorus (or the whole song, for that matter), by the end, they were surely seared into those peoples’ brains. Having long ditched his denim vest, Orey practically set the mic on fire as he sang/yelled his lyrics, while both him and Grieco attacked their guitars with finger- bleeding ferocity. At this point, Hand had probably lost so much sweat to fill several stinky buckets, but still attempted to break every drumstick, head, and cymbal that he had. And Annie Hoffman…as a bass player and someone with surgically repaired knees, I don’t know how she managed to hold down difficult bass lines, sing harmonies, and bounce around like a maniac, but damned if she did. The Field Effect’s whole set was

one huge lesson in “this is what we do. We have fun doing it, if it’s in front of twenty people or twenty thousand.”

What a way to start a weekend. The music, the atmosphere, the community of every band’s being friends, the ever-flowing beer…if ever there was a way to show visitors and outsiders what the Boston music community is like, it was that show. Keep an eye out for new material from these four great bands later this year. Later gators.